Inherently, a person's hands may interact with one or more environments, objects, animals, or other people throughout the course of daily life. Accordingly, a person's hands may come into contact with, and present one or more surfaces that may allow for retention of, and subsequent transmission of, various forms of infectious agents. Infectious agents are otherwise referred to as pathogens, or “germs,” and may include, among others, viruses, bacteria, fungi, protozoa, and parasites. Furthermore, the presence of one or more infectious agents on a person's hands may lead to said person contracting, or transmitting, one or more communicable (transmissible) diseases. As such, it is beneficial for people to wash their hands regularly.
Various cleaning agents (such as, among others, antibacterial hand washes, surfactants (soaps), and sanitizers, and the like), in addition to various tools (such as, among others, scrubbing brushes, nail picks, and the like), are known in the art for aiding in reducing a level of infectious agents present on a person's hands. However, in spite of the availability of various materials and tools, it is known that various communicable diseases are still transmitted due to improper hand cleaning technique, and/or a frequency of hand cleaning that is inadequate. This issue of transmission of one or more communicable diseases as a result of contact, and subsequent retention of one or more infectious agents on a person's hand is of particular importance for diverse environments, ranging from restaurants to laboratories and hospitals. In this specific example, a healthcare worker may contaminate his/her hands through contact with one or more patients infected with one or more communicable diseases. In some instances, the infectious agents (microorganisms) contaminating the healthcare worker's hands may survive on skin for the length of time ranging from minutes to hours, and may spread to their clothing if they are not adequately removed. In this example, if the healthcare worker does not thoroughly clean his/her hands after contact with the one or more infected patients, and before contact with one or more healthy persons, transmission of the one or more communicable diseases may result. Furthermore, and as identified in a World Health Organization study (WHO Guidelines on Hand Hygiene in Health Care: a Summary, 2009), the incidence of contraction of one or more infections due primarily to transmission within a clinical environment ranges from 4.5% to 19% and above in various countries for which information was presented. Additionally, transmission by contaminated healthcare workers hands was identified as one of the most common methods. This issue is not restricted to just healthcare workers. Indeed, recent outbreaks of the influenza virus have demonstrated. The quick and devastating effects of human to human transmission, and ineffective hand-washing continues to be one of the primary causes of this transmission.
Even if individuals make appropriate efforts to clean their hands frequently, they may not employ the appropriate technique, and therefore not reduce the level of infectious agents present on one or more hands (or portion thereof) enough to prevent the transmission of communicable diseases. In particular, it may be found that a relatively high concentration of infectious agents may be retained in proximity to the nails of a hand of a user after a cleaning process when compared to the surface area of skin of a hand as a whole. Specifically, a high concentration of infectious agents may be present on an underside of a nail plate, and on an area of skin proximate to the nail plate, (i.e., the hyponychium skin between a free margin of the nail plate and an onychodermal band of a finger or any digit). As such, the need exists for a device, and for associated methods, for improving cleaning appendages, including hands and feet.